Each year several people are either killed or injured as a result of severe weather in general and tornadoes in particular. While severe weather is inevitable, particularly in the spring of the year, death and injury resulting from such weather can be reduced provided sufficient warning is received in time to allow people to seek appropriate shelter.
Current systems are available that warn of the approach of an oncoming storm. These systems are deficient, however, in that they usually provide weather or tornado warnings that cover a rather large area. Because tornados usually cut a path no more than a mile wide, the fact that current warnings are issued to cover a multi-county area tends to lull people into complacency as far as seeking shelter. As a result, once one realizes that a tornado is definitely in their area, there is often not enough time to take shelter in an appropriate place. For this reason, a device whose warning of approaching severe weather or tornadoes is limited to a specific area would be an important improvement in the art.
Several devices currently exist that warn of tornadoes or severe weather once the storm is in your area. Such devices are disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 3,753,117 (Downing et al.) and U.S. Pat. No. 5,355,350 (Bass et al.). The devices disclosed in these patents rely on particular environmental characteristics generated by an approaching tornado. The Bass et al. patent for example senses certain sounds generated by an approaching storm. Depending on the frequencies, amplitudes, and rate of change of the amplitudes sensed by the Bass et al. device, an acoustic alarm is activated. Downing et al. receives electrical signals which result from the electrical activity associated with an approaching storm. Other devices sense certain electromagnetic or radio frequency emissions resulting from a particular weather pattern or storm. Such devices are disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 3,245,078 (Kohl) and U.S. Pat. No. 3,646,540 (Cooper). Still other warning devices such as the ones disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 3,717,861 (Wright, Jr.) and U.S. Pat. No. 4,632,052 (Green) are triggered by the sudden drop in barometric pressure that is associated with an approaching tornado.
The problem with the above identified warning devices is that they do not sense a tornado until the storm is directly upon a particular area. This allows little or no time to respond, particularly if one has to round up children and/or pets before heading to a storm shelter. For this reason, a tornado warning device that provides a warning that is limited to a specific area yet is activated soon enough to allow time to respond would be an important improvement in the art.
Beginning in 1997, the Emergency Broadcast System was replaced with the Emergency Alert System (EAS). The EAS uses Specific Area Message Encoding (S.A.M.E.) technology to distribute messages thereby allowing for great improvement in how the public is provided with emergency information. The new system allows state and local officials to quickly send out important area-specific state and local emergency information. S.A.M.E. uses digital codes developed by the National Weather Service (NWS). Using these codes, NWS offices can originate coded messages that are area-specific thereby allowing emergency warnings to be transmitted to people only in the affected geographic area.
Currently, EAS signals are received in specially equipped consumer products such as televisions, and radios. However, no warning device exists that is capable of being mounted on the wall or ceiling of a room or, placed on a counter top. Such a device would be an important improvement in the art as it would allow individuals who may be involved in activities unrelated to radio or television when the warning is issued to be able to hear the alarm. Therefore, a device capable of operating in a standby mode whereby it receives the codes transmitted by the NWS and activates a warning signal in response to a particular preselected code without any user interaction would be an important improvement in the art.